Never Over-Load It Again
The idea for writing this article hit me when I was cycling past Point Walter toward the Attadale foreshore. I was ruminating the idea because I had several in depth conversations about it with patients and decided that it was time for me to put pen to paper and expand some of my thoughts on the topic.
So, with that said let’s talk about Load Management.
We define “Load” as the amount of work required by your X-body part. You load your tissues every time you use them.
“Capacity” therefore is the totally amount of work your X-body part can do before sustaining an injury.
Load Management is the idea that if we keep the load on a specific tissue, limb or region of the spine under its capacity to do “work” before it is damaged, then we can get the most out of our bodies without acquiring new injuries or flaring up old ones.
In Brief: When load exceeds capacity it results in damage. When capacity exceeds load, we have health and your body is in balance.
Every tissue in the body has a certain capacity of mechanical stress it can handle before it is damaged. Tissues undergo stress every time we use them. When used correctly and kept under their loading ‘capacity’ our tissues will be able to repeat the task again and again without damage. It’s important to note that damage can be either serious and require intervention or it can be non-serious and will fully recover with sufficient rest.
If you suspect you have seriously injured yourself, you should always seek the opinion of your health professional.
When load exceeds capacity, it results in local fatigue of those tissues which then starts a cascade of changes in movement and form and further compensations that ultimately lead to tissue damage and injury.
The fatigue cascade is what results when we change form to unload the sore (fatiguing) tissues and load other ones. These changes to our form then require further changes when those newly recruited tissues fail, too. Then so on and so forth. In most cases the newly adopted form is less suited to the task and recruits muscles that are not best suited for the job, overloading them too.
Mental fatigue (tiredness) as it builds up causes us to drop focus. When our focus drops it can initiate the fatigue cascade, too.
Physical fatigue can take many forms. Muscle soreness, joint aches, wobbly limbs, and nerve-like pain all come to mind. As these symptoms begin to appear and, in an attempt, to relieve the symptoms enter the same fatigue cascade.
Some of the time we are aware that our body is trying to change form and we resist it. So, we try harder to maintain correct form, recruiting the correct muscles but with more conscious effort and strain. The natural end point is that the tissue totally fails. However, this is unlikely in practice. Usually, our ability to keep controlling the muscle effectively fails before this stage. In this situation injury is very likely.
To put this into relatable terms, let’s try this thought experiment.
Imagine running laps of an oval until you feel moderate fatigue in your quads then measure the distance. Now try the same task but do it with a walking handstand and measure the distance as soon as you sense the same level of moderate fatigue in your biceps (pretend that you have the coordination and have practiced for this experiment). I’d bet the distance you cover hand-standing was shorter than conventionally running.
Its a silly example but it makes the point.
Tissues and body parts not designed for a job will fatigue faster.
So how do we keep the tissues we want active, active?
What elements of ‘load management’ can we control? Let’s cover the Top 6 you can manage right now.
Duration of activity
Intensity of activity
Form and technique
Variety of movements
Frequency and rest periods
Recovery and healing
Let’s briefly cover each. I’ve helpfully underlined the key take-aways.
The duration of an activity is important to manage because over time we will grow more tired and become physically and mentally fatigued. As the duration of activity increases, so does fatigue.
The intensity of an activity is a measure of how hard it is for your body to perform. The more intense the activity, the less time (duration) we can sustain healthy, normal form. If an activity is more intense it usually requires the duration is shorter.
Form and technique are how we control on a micro level, the load on our body and tissues. The more correct our technique, the less load our tissues experience and the longer we can safely use them before they start to fail and become damaged.
Variety within a given task is a little-known key ingredient to sustaining long duration activity. By varying the specific tasks we perform and periodically alternating back and forth between them, we can extend the ‘duration’ of the activity as a whole. Let’s think about this in the context of gardening. Instead of only performing one task at a time and taking it through to its completion. Instead, we choose to rotate through pruning, weeding, mowing, edging, raking, or lifting etc. In this case we could get more total work done before we overload any particular part of the body. Odds are you’ll feel better at the end too. You might even back up your herculean effort with a second day of concurrent work!
The frequency we engage in an activity and the rest periods between reps/sets/sessions are also important to manage. As we engage in activity more frequently (daily vs weekly) the amount of time available to rest and recover goes down. At a certain point we cannot recover fully from the activity and damage can result.
Recovery and healing are important to keep in mind after engaging in any activity, even when it was at the right ‘dose’. To enhance recovery we need adequate sleep, plenty of water and good nutrition. You can’t go to the gym and belt out a massive work out, eat take out for dinner then stay up all night sustained by energy drinks studying and expect to be recovered for your work out the next day.
And that’s it for now. Be sure to check back periodically for updates to this article.
If you have any questions on load management specific to you, please call or email us your questions.
Alternatively if you would a full appraisal you could book in for an assessment, here.
